Aljamiado writing flourished as a clandestine identity marker under Inquisition threat

Evidence

The great rarity of surviving aljamiado manuscripts from the fifteenth century and earlier I regard as of particular significance because, during that early Mudejar period there was no ban in force on the use of the Arabic script such as was imposed later. The Inquisition had no jurisdiction over Muslims in such matters, so it would not have been dangerous to own a manuscript in Arabic characters in the fifteenth century. On the other hand, during most of the sixteenth century, there was such a ban, so that almost all material was written under conditions of clandestinity. If the use of the script for this purpose had already been well-established early, one might have expected more abundant evidence to survive from the preclandestine years than from the sixteenth century, and that is certainly not the case. As table 1 demonstrates, from the fifteenth century (and earlier) aljamiado manuscripts are extremely rare, and from the sixteenth they are relatively common. My own hypothesis is that Spain’s crypto-Muslims turned increasingly to writing in aljam´ıa as a medium through which they could still manage to express their Islamic distinctiveness because they felt their identity so much under threat. Most of them outside Valencia could no longer express themselves adequately in Arabic. Their use of their vernacular set down in the Arabic script was the next best thing. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 638 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Systematic aljamiado orthography emerged only in the sixteenth century among crypto-Muslims; Clandestine Morisco writings forged continuity from Spanish Islam into North African exile — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 803; Hidden manuscript hoards reveal what clandestine Spanish Muslims read — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 593 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Spain’s crypto-Muslims adopted vernacular-in-Arabic-script writing as an identity survival strategy #corroborates (0.95) — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 638